liquid crystal

liquid crystal,

liquid whose component particles, atoms or molecules, tend to arrange themselves with a degree of order far exceeding that found in ordinary liquids and approaching that of solid crystals. As a result, liquid crystals have many of the optical properties of solid crystals. Moreover, because its atomic or molecular order is not as firmly fixed as that of a solid crystal, a liquid can be easily modified by electromagnetic radiation, mechanical stress, or temperature, with corresponding changes in its optical properties. In typical early uses, a small electrical impulse darkened the crystal so that it was clearly visible against the lighter background of neutral crystals. An array of seven lozenges, each of which can be darkened by a separate impulse, can yield any digit. Such liquid crystal displays (LCDs) have become the most common means of producing visual readouts on such devices as digital clocks and electronic calculators. Color LCD panels consisting of millions of pixels, or picture elements, each containing three subpixels (one each for red, blue, or green, with the color produced by a filter), are used as viewing screens in television sets, computer monitors, and other devices; the light source in LCD panels is now typically an LED backlight. LCDs have significantly lower energy requirements than the cathode-ray tubescathode-ray tube(CRT), special-purpose electron tube in which electrons are accelerated by high-voltage anodes, formed into a beam by focusing electrodes, and projected toward a phosphorescent screen that forms one face of the tube......Click the link for more information. formerly used in television sets and computer monitors. Some liquid crystals vary the color of the light that they reflect as their temperature changes. Since the colors reflected at any given temperature are quite specific, temperature can be measured by this means to an accuracy of 0.1&degC;.

Bibliography

liquid crystal

[′lik·wəd ′krist·əl]

(physical chemistry)

A liquid which is not isotropic; it is birefringent and exhibits interference patterns in polarized light; this behavior results from the orientation of molecules parallel to each other in large clusters.

liquid crystal

A liquid crystal is a state of matter between liquid and solid (a "mesophase"). They change shape like a fluid but have the molecular alignment characteristics of a solid crystal. Liquid crystals are composed of organic, rod-shaped molecules that align in parallel, and the common types used in electronic displays are nematic, cholesteric and smectic.

Nematic LCs Randomly positioned in parallel, nematic LCs react quickly to electric fields, which is why they are used in the great majority of LCD screens. Meaning "thread" in Greek, nematic LCs are monostable and return to their original alignment when the electric field is removed. See LCD.

Cholesteric LCs (Chiral Nematic LCs) Cholesteric LCs are lined up in separate layers that form a spiral (helix). The displays retain their image without power (bistable) but are slower to react to changes than nematic screens. See cholesteric LCD.

Smectic LCs Positioned side-by-side in layers, smectic LCs are bistable with similar attributes as cholesteric LCs. They retain their image without power and are slower to react than nematics. Smectic means "soapy" in Greek.

Discovered in the 19th Century In 1888, liquid crystals were identified by Austrian botanist Friedrich Reinitzer and German physicist Otto Lehmann. Studying the cholesterol in carrots using a temperature-controlled polarizing microscope, they noticed that the light passing through the carrot compound (later known as "cholesteryl benzoate") exhibited the refraction effect of a solid crystal when heat was applied. By 1907, Germany-based Merck was selling "liquid and flowing crystal" chemicals.

an extensional flow enforcing elongation of the droplets and orientation of the LCP molecules along the flow direction, the elastic free-energy of the droplets can either decrease or increase depending on the nematic director configuration.

Because the two phases of COP-2 have closer chemical composition and, hence, fairly good interfacial adhesion, the LCP droplets are severely involved in the fracture thus allowing a direct observation of the structure of the nematic domains.

The incorporation of chiral atropisomeric BN-containing substituents in a nematic polymer matrix leads to a chiral twisted nematic (cholesteric) phase formation in the same way as it has been shown before for cholesteryl containing copolymers (where the chirality is due to asymmetric carbon atoms in the side chains) (7, 19).

viscosity increasing downstream because of the reduction of the initial orientation in the nematic melt; 2.

The characteristic oscillatory stress response expected of a director tumbling nematic and the single stress overshoot predicted for a flow-aligning nematic have been experimentally reported for pentylcianobiphenyl (5CB) and octycyanobiphenyl (8CB), respectively, by Gu et al.

All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.